After a six-year recording hiatus, Brazilian vocal star Marisa Monte returns with two terrific new albums that feature such illustrious guests as David Bryne, Philip Glass, Seu Jorge and Carlinhos Brown.

“The Other Stream” is a monthly look at music outside the mainstream that pushes borders and boundaries.

A former samba drummer who grew up training to be an opera singer before turning her attention to jazz, Marisa Monte is Brazil's best-selling vocal star of the past decade. Her genre-leaping music provides a vital link between the vibrant cultural heritage of her homeland and left-of-center pop that mixes elements of electronica, weathered torch songs and more into a sublime blend.

After a six-year hiatus from recording, during which she gave birth to her first child, she now returns with a pair of gently intoxicating albums. “Universo Ao Meu Redor” (which translates as “The Universe Around Me”) was produced by erstwhile Beastie Boys collaborator Mario Caldato, who together with the 38-year-old Monte extends and gently subverts the samba traditions saluted here. Former head Talking Head David Byrne lends vocal support on the brief but lilting “Statue of Liberty.” It's the only number on this 14-track album not performed in Portuguese, but you don't have to be bilingual to be enchanted by Monte's exquisite vocals or her ability to make any style her own.

The second album, the more experimental “Infinito Particular” (“Infinite Private”), is a collection of previously unreleased and newly completed songs, some old, some as recent as last year. It features longtime collaborators Carlinhos Brown and Arnaldo Atunes (with whom Monte made the classic 2003 album “Tribalistas”), along with “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou” troubadour Seu Jorge and an all-star lineup of young and veteran talents. String arrangements are provided on two songs apiece by Brazil's Eumir Deodato and New York's Philip Glass, whose annual sabbaticals in Brazil make him a far more sympathetic foil than his Big Apple minimalist composer credentials might suggest.

Both albums are gems of understatement that reveal more of themselves with each new listen. No matter the context, Monte delights with her seductive singing, incisive songwriting and penchant for making music that is indelibly Brazilian in flavor, yet unmistakably universal in scope and appeal.

On “By a Thread,” Ellis shines on tenor and soprano saxes, bass clarinet and ocarina. He also composed all nine selections on this fetching album, which features such kindred musical spirits as pianist Aaron Goldberg and rising guitarist Mike Moreno.

Ellis, 33, negotiates the rhythmic twists of “Umpty Eleven” with ease, gets funky on the Hunter-flavored “Moore's Alphabet” and combines bluesy grit and boppish verve on “Lonnie.” He also realizes that the space between notes is as important as the notes themselves; a rare attribute in musicians this young.

Jimi Hendrix, B.B. King, Janis Joplin, Ry Cooder, the James Gang and South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela are just some of the artists who covered songs by unsung R&B vocal great Howard Tate in the 1960s. After a three-decade descent into drugs and homelessness, a clean and sober Tate re-emerged a few years ago with his remarkably soulful voice stronger and more supple than ever.

On his second album in the past three years, Tate is joined by such musical admirers as Lou Reed, jazz greats Carla Bley and Steve Swallow, former Frank Zappa band member Tom Fowler and Elvis Costello's rhythm section. Whether belting out a gospel rave-up, such as his self-penned “Solid Ground,” or breathing new life into weathered gems by Reed (“How Do You Think It Feels”), Bley (“The Lord Is Listenin' to Ya, Hallelujah”), Nick Lowe (“Homewrecker”) or Randy Newman (“I'll Be Home” and “Louisiana 1927”), Tate soars time and again, as befits a soul survivor of the highest order.